Friday, December 31, 2010

Welcome everbloody, to our last post of 2010, and, if I'd had half a brain, that's what the post should have been... 2010! How perfect that would be! But, as we all know, Tabonga doesn't live in a perfect world.

In the sleepy coastal town of Potters Bluff, Rhode Island, there are strange murders where people passing through are killed by mobs of townspeople. The Sherrif seems to be the only person who doesn't have a clue. The local undertaker is involved in reanimating the dead, and, as it turns out, the Sherrif's wife is also involved. Saw this one when it came out, because of the hype about this being the next offering by the makers of ALIEN. Pretty good hype! I love the Japanese title... ZONGERIA!

Music is by Joe Renzetti, Joe had 28 composing and 5 soundtrack credits starting in 1978 with THE BUDDY HOLLY STORY! A few other films he worked on are FATSO, THE EXTERMINATOR, POLTERGEIST III, CHILD'S PLAY, BASKET CASE 2 and FRANKENHOOKER, not too bad!!

It's time to bring in our little Dungeon helper, Ralphie The Tarantula, as he'll be pushing the last button of the year, the big red 'GO' button that starts our last Eariffic Earclip of 2010, for... DEAD & BURIED!!

Strange, gruesome murders by local residents against visiting tourists are beginning to take place in the small coastal village of Potters Bluff in Rhode Island (Mendocino, CA).

Alright then, who's hungry?!.. Light or dark meat?

James Farentino plays Sheriff Dan Gillis, he's in charge of solving the mystery. This was a rare role for James, being outside his life on TV.

This is especially horrific as the nurse explains in detail to this patient exactly what she plans on doing with this oversized hypodermic needle!!..

It was pretty much this image that was the bane of fifties pre-code horror comics and led to the comics code in 1954, which then pronounced the death of a multitude of uncensored comic titles like ADVENTURES INTO DARKNESS, TALES FROM THE CRYPT, STRANGE WORLDS, LOST WORLDS, WEIRD SCIENCE, WEIRD FANTASY, MISTER MYSTERY, TALES OF HORROR, WEIRD TALES OF THE FUTURE, HAUNTED THRILLS, WEIRD CHILLS, SHOCK SUSPENSTORIES, JOURNEY INTO FEAR, VAULT OF HORROR, TOMB OF TERROR, THE BEYOND, BEWARE!, THE UNSEEN, THE THING!, HORRIFIC, VOODOO, OUT OF THE SHADOWS, WORLDS OF FEAR, CHAMBER OF CHILLS, BLACK CAT, WEIRD TERROR, GHOSTLY WEIRD COMICS and many, many more, all the good stuff. I mean, after you've had heroin, why in the Hell would you want a glass of milk? Try to make horror homogenized? MAD Magazine was the rare example of a publisher making the crossover to success. Magazines were excluded from the code... Genius!

Love this shot of the goons, out and about... After people die there, they are later seen holding local jobs or just walking around, and all love beating up or killing out-of-towners and documenting it on film.

Here's Robert Englund as Harry, playing with his model plane while retrieving a Thunderbird from the ocean with his tow truck. In three years he scores big as Freddy in NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET. After this film, Robert's next role would be in GALAXY OF TERROR.

Well, back to the fun!

Stan Winston was probably impressed with EYES WITHOUT A FACE and wanted to try his hand with a similar scene. Here's Jack Albertson, as town undertaker and monster maker, William G. Dobbs, as he works on another of his creations.

Now for the final touch... Eyeballs!

This is a weird part, Dan digs up a coffin and finds a beating heart inside!

Dan decides to pay a visit to undertaker Dobbs and get some answers to his questions, but becomes hypnotized by the images on the screen. They are images from some of the murders, still 2 shows his wife stabbing an unknown lover for the camera. Then, you see good old William G. Dobbs there, having a little too much fun!

Dan's mind swirls in horror and pain as he watches and tries to grasp the mindbending implications.

He shoots Dobbs, but Dobbs is reanimated himself, and cannot really die. You can see, he was operating on himself!

Oh, by the way... There's one more thing you should know, Dan... Come, let me fix those for you.

Wednesday, December 29, 2010

The stylish Val Lewton production "BEDLAM" is loosely based on "A Rake's Progress," a series of eight paintings by the amazing 18th century English artist William Hogarth! The series shows the decline and fall of Tom Rakewell, who is eventually imprisoned in Prison, and ends up in a place called Bedlam. The 8 plates are titled thusly, #1-The Heir, #2-The Levée, #3-The Orgy, #4-The Arrest, #5-The Marriage, #6-The Gaming House, #7-The Prison, #8-The Madhouse!! You get the idea!

Just for starters, this is how they treat people who try and escape from Bedlam, whether they are insane or not, and speaking of insane, how about 264 composing credits for maestro Roy Webb, including Alfred Hitchcock's "Notorious," "Dick Tracy," "The Body Snatcher" and "Zombies On Broadway," just to scratch the surface of this man's astounding output!

Unlike Tom Rakewell in the original plates, this is a story of Nell Bowen, seen here with her benefactor Lord Mortimer, also known as the trumpet playing, circus clown Billy House, the man of all men who gets to claim credit for being the live-action model for Disney cartoon characters Doc of the Seven Dwarfs, and the fat pirate in "Peter Pan!"

The King of Horror, Boris Karloff, is Master George Sims, the deranged cat who runs this madhouse called Bedlam, and right now he has been called on the carpet by an unhappy Lord Mortimer!

Lord Mortimer's little sidekick, Pompey, played by Frankie Dee, does his best at doing an impression of the Boris Karloff Sims character he just met in the hallway!! Folksinger/actor Hamilton Camp was the voice of Pompey!

Sims gives Nell a tour of Bedlam! Lucky girl, most people have to pay!

One of Sims' favourite zanies is Dorothea the Dove as portrayed by the quite lovely Joan Newton, who only has one other credit for some odd reason!

.......A gold painted man reciting poetry who might just pass out and die if nobody's paying attention! This is a very real concept, when I was taking a sculpture class in junior college, my teacher was doing a plaster cast of his chest at his home, and he passed out and fell right over! It was a good thing his wife was there!

Well, you might think "Bedlam" is a Boris Karloff film, but for me, this is a story of Miss Joan Boniface Winnifrith, who was born January 2, 1913, and who died as Anna Lee, 91 years later in 2004! As a hopeless romantic, it's hard not to fall in love with Anna Lee as Nell Bowen in "Bedlam!" Anna must have been a pretty strong lady in real life too, working in countless films of distinction from "The Sound Of Music" to "Whatever Happened To Baby Jane," and the last 26 years of her life in the enduring role of Lila Quartermaine on the long running television soap opera, "General Hospital." Sadly, in 1982, Anna was in a car accident that crippled her from the waist down, but it didn't stop her from continuing her role as Lila for years and years! They just wrote it into the script, as they eventually would do with her death!

Boris is full of it, and Anna gives him what we like to refer to around here as "The Look!"

The character of Nell is a bold, self-assured woman, who because of the times becomes a victim of her own confidence! She's just too smart........

............and the uptight guys don't dig it!!

Well, it doesn't take much imagination to figure out where Nell ended up, she's been declared insane and sent directly to Bedlam!! Do not pass go, do not collect two hundred dollars!!

Richard Fraser is The Stonemason Quaker, the thee, thy, and thou man who is kinda sweet on Nell! Here he gets a good dose of what Bedlam is really all about! Richard Fraser was in some good flicks like "White Pongo," "The Picture Of Dorian Gray," and "The Cobra Strikes" before opting for an early retirement!

One of the residents of Bedlam, professional wrassler Vic Holbrook as Tom the Tiger, is totally anti-social and has to be kept in a room of his own!

Sims has had enough of Nell's mouth, so he sticks her in a cage match with Tom the Tiger!

Leaning on the table is one of Nell's friends in the joint, Dan the Dog, aka perennial Dungeon fave Robert Clarke, in what would be his 15th film appearance!! Nell hears some moaning, and decides to go check it out.........

...........when she finds this guy!!!

Boris comes back to give Nell a special treatment, since she's taken everything else he's thrown at her, and still come out on top, but the rest of the inmates aren't ready to be docile any longer!

The crazies convene their own court and even though the bailiff keeps giving his decision, "split him in two!" the judge declares Sims sane, and releases him!

"BEDLAM" is obviously a movie I highly recommend, and I found a copy at Big Lots that's a double feature with another good Karloff film, "Isle Of The Dead" for three bucks! That's the deal of the century!!

DWRAYGER DUNGEON PRESENTS: The Monster Movie Music Manifesto

Horror, Science Fiction, Fantasy, Spy, Super-Hero, JD, Thriller and Noir films, that's what we like, and a recurring theme in a lot of those kinds of movies has always been music! There were rockin' clubs and cafes with cool jukeboxes, teen poolside parties with local bands, sometimes it was a seedy bar with a sleazy torch singer, a beatnik coffeehouse, maybe dancing somewhere in outer space, or some weird tribal ceremony on a cool secluded island with giant monsters running around, and you could count on it that a lot of the time there was smoking and drinking going on. It was a fun time!! A lot of movies also had quirky, swingin', jazzy or rockin' themes or credits, or maybe just some wild Psychotronic elements! We started with the music from 50's & 60's Monster Movies, but we later morphed into the new, bigger and better, Rock and Soul, 70's brevity, 80's maybes, 1940's Gorilla and Bela site from Hell! So, sit down, and take a load off, pour yourself a cool one, and order up something hot and greasy, because we have a lot of tasty tidbits on the menu, way outside the realm of good taste! If any of the postings just happen to step on anybody's toes, let us know & we will remove them immediately, if not sooner!! We recognize all formal copyrights, and do this solely to support and promote the films featured! This forum is only being presented in a critical and scholarly critique, and should not be construed as anything else. It's just all for Fun & Historical Education in an effort to keep bad taste alive forever!!! If the words and pictures pique your interest, then please go out & buy, or rent the movies, wherever you can find them! All soundclips are approximately two minutes long, or just enough to give you a feel for the movie! When we post a sound clip, it will only stay up 30 days or less! These days, after getting hassled time and time again, we don't even do soundclips much anymore!!

Here are some good places to start your search for hard to find cult films on the internet:

TRASH PALACE!

CULT ACTION!!

When it comes to movies, the name of this site speaks for itself!

1980's CASSETTE CULTURE

Hear What You Missed The First Go Round!

BSC MUSIC

If you would like to hear more amazing music from composers like Peter Thomas and Martin Böttcher, then do yourself a favor and check out BSC Music! There Are Still Places In The World To Buy Cool Music!